


On the Ruins of Pana'ewa

by Keenir



Category: Moana (2016)
Genre: Gen, Missing Scene, Pana'ewa, You notice how Maui was always careful not to let Moana use his hook?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-16
Updated: 2017-04-16
Packaged: 2018-10-17 23:49:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10604871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Keenir/pseuds/Keenir
Summary: After leaving Moana, Maui runs into someone he had once recruited to fight at his side - who offers a way to help Moana.  The only price is Maui's hook.





	

Entirely too soon for his tastes, Maui's hawk eyes spotted an island ahead of him.  _Wait a minute, there aren't supposed to be any islands here - they can't pick themselves up and...oh great.  Just great._ "Well, nobody's shooting at me, or even waving their fists angrily, so I'll come in for a landing," and swooped down, landing in a barely-damp taro field.  Rebecoming himself, two arms and two legs and dashing body with all the tattoos, he smiled at the young lady standing not a few yards away.  "I'm back," he said, remembering her.

"Yes, yes you are," she said, stabbing the hoe into the ground.

"Not that I'm displeased to see you, but - how?" Maui asked, slinging his hook to where it wasn't visible.

"I have won mana over the past centuries, and I have won lives and power."

"Oh.  Nice.  In that case, welcome to the demigod family."  _Not sure if there are any left other than you and me, but that's beside the point._

Her eyes narrowed.  "You think I am pleased to be this?  Happiness and anger are not things that I ever had, nor are things that my kin have even to this day; we were contented.  You made me into this, a creature that struggles."

_"A creature that learns," Maui said.  In hindsight, combining human cleverness and learning, with the waterfall goby's inability to give up or surrender...at the time, it was a good idea.  "And together, we won."_ Once, this place had been the home and domain of Pana'ewa the reptile man.  _And as full of myself and my ego as Moana thinks I am, I never named my home after me, or me after my home.  Not that that pile of pebbles was fit for a name, even if it was the only place I could rest my feet for so long_.

"You got the place moving," Maui noted.

"Yes.  I included it in the terms of surrender for one of the monsters I defeated after you left, great Maui," she said.

"That explains that," Maui nodded.  "I like what you've done with the place," Maui said.  "Still calling it Pana'ewa?"

"I renamed the island when I was declared _ali'i_ , the highest chief who rules over this island."  Seeing Maui was about to ask what the new name was, "This land will soon be swallowed by the sea, and thus her new name is not worth the bother of telling mighty Maui, demigod, lord of the wind and sea, friend of mankind, shapeshifter, maker of shapeshifters."

Little Maui winced.

"Then what're you up to?" Maui asked her.

"Setting out for a new rock," she said.  "For a thousand years, my followers have reeled in and feasted upon any monster which strayed too close to my domain.  Now we shall do so on the open sea, whether we find another island or not."

_That would definitely explain why the seas weren't as rife with hungry troublemakers as there used to me - like I told Moana there were.  And why the ones who were left, we found huddled around Tamatoa's place...except for the insane nuts._

While Maui was thinking this, and wondering just what she was ruling over, his little Maui tattoo gestured to her and held out his hand to mime clasping hers, and then proceeded to leap towards and battle Te Ka - a small canoe floating on the water in the battle scene - and then held his arms out to ask her what she thought of his proposal.

"No," she said.  "You left me like this," holding up a five-fingered hand, flexing it, not even trying to make a fist.  "For what reason would I adventure alongside you again?  I have no reason to fight at your side, demigod, shapeshifter."

Little Maui looked up at Maui's face, and gestured at her, then held up one finger, then a second finger.

"Yeah, I get it," Maui told him.

Then a third finger.

"No, I didn't forget," Maui said.

"Three," said the once goby.  "Maui, shapeshifter, trickster, thief.  What have you offered the unfortunate who manned the canoe your little you showed me?"

"Nothing," Maui said.  "She's out there because its the way to save her island."

"One island.  Certainly not enough glory to satiate Maui, shapeshifter, demigod -"

Maui whipped out his hook, letting it glow in the air between them.  It didn't escape his notice that, while she froze in place at that  glimpse of the divine tool, she then started to reach for it.

Maui lifted his hook, holding it above his head.  "Her name's Moana, and she's the reason my hook's like this now."

Eyes narrowed, considering.  "A mighty goddess, clearly."

"Mortal.  With a pet chicken dumper than a rock.  Seriously not kidding."

"And yet you were with her for any length of time.  Time enough to damage a hook which survived so many centuries and deeds and misdeeds and transformations."

"You're still angry about that," Maui said. _Contrary to what you said.  
_

"Angry, sad, at peace with my fate for the past thousand years - unsurprising given the monstrosity you reshaped me into," she said.   "Very well, I change my mind, little tattoo - I shall help your friend against Te Ka."

"Great," Maui said, "let's go."

"I will go, and I will bring all those who follow me.  I will give you a canoe and supplies, so you may drift in some other direction."

"What??" Maui asked.

"The price for my participation is your hook, Maui, demigod, lord of the wind and sea, shapeshifter, friend of mankind.   I need not remind you that you transformed me so Pana'ewa could be defeated; before, you were unable to; after, we destroyed him together.  I offer the suggestion that I will destroy Te Ka where you failed."

"You're treading on dangerous ground," Maui warned her.

"It is ground which I am _ali'i_ of.  And am I wrong?  I stand here in my domain, and before me stands the mighty Maui, shapeshifter, a broken demigod who has taken to fleeing from glorious challenges.  You made me what I am, and we battled against evils; then you left and broke existence.  You hid for a thousand years, and now have retreated to my home, one of your many battlefields."

"I didn't hide -" Maui started to say, but was interrupted - stopped:

Little Maui made a simple gesture which had meaning only to the person he had been alone with for a thousand years:  Maui said, "You're right.  Its a rotten thing, but she's got a point."  _I steered while Moana fought those blowdart- and spear-hefting loonies.  I skulked and fell on my face while Moana was doing better against Tamatoa than most would.  I am Maui, shapeshifter, mighty as any tree that can be named...and now I'm driftwood, good for fires?  The heck with that - whether or not I'm driftwood, I'm not going to abandon a perfectly good hero like Moana to fight by herself.  Not before I'm dead, anyway._ To she who Maui had once fought alongside, "Thanks for the offer, but I have to do this myself."

Little Maui nudged Maui.

"Not myself - with Moana."   _She's about as sensible in the face of danger as that chicken of hers.  She knows when she's doing something scary, and yet_...

"Then I wish you well, demigod, shapeshifter, tattoo," she said as Maui twirled his hook and transformed back into an eagle.   As the eagle neared the horizon, she said, "And perhaps one day I will encounter this Moana.  How else can I get ahold of your hook, now that all other avenues are exhausted, so I might return to the form I once had."

**Author's Note:**

> I learned about Pana'ewa from the (anthology) Hawaiian Goddesses by Linda Ching. It mentioned shark gods, but no Maui.


End file.
